The Band at the Big Show

Notice the reflection of the scenery
in the car windows  isent(sic) it
pretty?  I am sending
Claude one of each also     Grace

Broderick – tuba

Smith – euphonium
Harrson – 1st trombone
Doyle – 2nd trombone
Bern – bass drum
Ridgly – snare drum
Sloan – cornet

Putman (?) – alto horn
Bratey – alto valve trombone
Surdley – b-flat clarinet
Jasper –  e-flat clarinet

Mr. Gehle – tenor saxophone

Mrs. Gehle – alto saxophone

Add – solo cornet and band leader

Stephen – band mascot

The
To-Night
Big
Show

Band

This well dressed band of 14 ½ musicians is outfitted in a uniform typical of a circus or carnival show band. Their tall hats are similar to a British police constable's hat except for the tasseled plume and an American eagle badge. Their jackets are extravagantly decorated with florid embroidery. They also wear a kind of shoe spat that creates an illusion that they are shod in cavalry boots. Only a circus band would go to that extreme costume. The band's instrumentation of brass, with two clarinets, two saxophones, and drums was also a standard ensemble for small circus tent shows. What's unusual is that one musician is a woman, Mrs. Gehle on alto sax, who is wearing a kind of Hungarian hussar's hat.


This is a good example of how some mystery photos, even postcards with lots of names, are not solvable without more clues. The photocard and message were sent inside a letter so there is no postmark to establish date or place. The Big Show Band might be on any train platform in North America sometime between 1905 and 1920. And the pretty reflections in the windows of the train car offer little geography to identify the region.

The postcard's author wrote surnames without forenames, and  first names without last. Not helpful. Even the lettering on the drum head is ambiguous. 'To-Night Big Show' could work for any band playing a carnival, circus or traveling tent show.

So that leaves only the name of the author, Grace. It seems to me that only a person who knew the members of the band really well would bother to write their names under their faces. Names like Smith, Doyle, Jasper are the familiar way a manager would address an employee. As the only woman in the group, Mrs. Gehle's place by her husband might indicate some ownership of the ensemble. Could Mrs. Gehle and Grace be the same person?

The Germanic surname Gehle is uncommon, and a search of Ancestry.com produced just one "Grace Gehle" in Bloomington, Indiana in the 1930s. This woman used her married name but she was born in 1905. As the woman in the Big Show Band was surely about age 30, her birth year would therefore be in the 1880s or 1890s. The only person in the photo who might have be born in 1905 was the mascot boy, Stephen, who looks about age six. The Bloomington woman doesn't square with the postcard's time frame of 1905-1920. And she listed her occupation as stenographer, not saxophonist

So this one record proves nothing. I mention all this just on the remote chance that one day someone might come across the names in this story and actually recognize the people in the band. Maybe Grace was just taking the train from Chicago to St. Louis one day in 1908 and took a seat across from Mr. & Mrs. Gehle. Maybe she struck up a conversation with Broderick the tuba player, who shared an interest in photography and admired her new Kodak camera. It's a mystery.

The reason my research often finds an identification is because entertainers like publicity. The rule is: Put your name out there, preferably on the marquee. Get your name in the newspaper. Build an audience. Attract attention. Make some noise. Bang a drum. That's why it's show business.

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday
where nothing is ever just window dressing.